Chapter Thirty-Nine

How to Use the Internet to Build Your Local Business

By Ben Hart

We hear so much about the global reach of the Internet, and how the Internet allows a small business to have a worldwide reach for very little money.

And all that is certainly true.  I write and talk about that often. I have customers and clients in more than 50 countries -- Australia, New Zealand, all over Europe, Africa, South America, the Middle East, and of course Canada.

But what about using the Internet to build a local business?

Suppose you are a realtor, or you are selling a service, or you have a traditional brick and mortar store.

You can’t exactly ship or download a house, or auto-body repair,  a haircut, roof repair, or plumbing service.

What about these kinds of businesses – businesses that operate in a local area and who depend on local customers?

Can the Internet be used to build these kinds of businesses?

And my answer is: “Yes, yes, and yes.”

In fact, in many ways the Internet is even more effective for helping you build your local business?

Why?

Because a big question people have when the order something on line is: Is this business real? 

Am I going to get what I’m paying for?  And where is this business located anyway?

But if you are a local business with local customers, you don’t have that problem.

People know who you are.  They know where you are.  They know they can find you.

You are part of the community.  That’s the big advantage of being local. 

You don’t have as tough a job building trust with your customers . . . because your customers can just come by your store if they aren’t happy with what they bought from you.

And you use the Internet to promote your local business basically the same way you use it to promote a national or global business.

No matter what your business is, your #1 goal is to drive targeted traffic to your site and then to capture names of email addresses . . . so that you can then follow up with offers that you know your leads are interested in.

Remember, almost always your first job in marketing is to collect leads.  That goes for your offline and online marketing.

So let’s look at a couple of case studies – examples of how this would work for your online marketing if you are a local business with locally-based customers.

The first case study we’ll look at is for real estate.

Later in this chapter, I’ll cover other categories of locally-situated businesses -- including retail stores, home service businesses, and professional services such as legal, dental services, or even the owner of a roller skating rink.

What you will see is a pattern emerging for how you market your local business using the Internet.

So now let’s take our first case study.

Let’s say you are a realtor.  What should be on your main website?

The big mistake most realtors make with their site is to cover too big of an area.

This is one of the most common marketing mistakes made by most businesses with their website.

They make their website about them instead of about their customer.  And they make their website too broad, thinking this will increase their market.

That’s not what you should do. Instead, you should narrow your focus. 

This is true with all your marketing.  But it’s even more true on the Internet – which is target marketing, niche marketing on steroids.

Remember, to be a good marketer you must be an amateur psychologist.  You must get inside the heads of your prospects and your customers.  You must put yourself in their shoes.

You need to think “How would I look for what I am selling if I were them and not me?”  “How would I go about looking for a home?”

Well, If someone is looking for a home, they are usually looking to live in a particular area – a particular town.

So your site should emphasize the town.

The headline on your website should say something like: “Your Great Falls, Virginia Real Estate Specialist”

That’s a pretty good headline for a real estate website. The keywords you connect with your site should also emphasize your trading area.

When people hire a realtor, they want a specialist, an expert on finding the best values and best properties in their particular area of interest.

Now if you are the owner of a large real estate company that covers many locations. 

You will want to have a separate site for each town, city or even area of a city that you are serving.

So for a large city, let’s say New York City, you would not want your site to say “Your New York City Real Estate Specialist.”

That’s way too broad.  You would want the headline of your site to say “Your Brooklyn Real Estate Specialist.”

That’s how you beat REMAX, Century 21, Coldwell Banker and the big national real estate companies.

Most people know where they want to live.  People want to hire a specialist, an expert in the area they are interested in.  To succeed online, you need to be a niche marketer.

When people are looking to buy a new home in Great Falls Virginia, they will first go to their computers and they will type “homes Great Falls Virginia” or “real estate Great Falls Virginia” and various combinations like that.

They will include the location in their keyword searches.

So if you are specializing in real estate in Great Falls, Virginia, and if your site is set up that way, your site will pop up at the top, or very near the top of the listings for people searching for real estate in Great Falls, Virginia.

And if you are running a pay-per-click ad campaign on Google AdWords, you can be certain your ad will be at the top of the listings – and super cheaply.

If your site is any good at all, it will rank high (near the top) of the free “organic” search listings for “Great Falls, Virginia, Real Estate” sites. 

Okay, so we have just established that the headline on your website should be something like: “Your Real Estate Specialist for Great Falls, Virginia?”

What else should be on your site if you are a realtor? 

Well, as with all websites, make your site 90% about your customer, 10% about you.

Most realtor sites I see are all about the realtor.   There’s a grinning photo of the realtor, maybe with a picture of their wife and kids – I guess to show us what great people they are.

Well, that’s nice.  It’s good to know I’m not dealing with Jack the Ripper.

But what I really want to know as a visitor to your site is: “What can you do for me if I am looking to buy a home in Great Falls or if I am selling a property located in Great Falls?”

The only reason your customer will want to know about you is to be assured that you are an expert at what you do. 

So a photo of you, credentials and testimonials are needed.  But a photo of you is not all that should be on your site. Nor should it be the main focus of your site.

You and your credentials are supporting material.  The main focus of your site should be on your prospect.

It should be to have a site that is useful to your prospect who is interested in properties in Great Falls Virginia.    So you want your site packed with useful information, specifically on that topic.

A site for a realtor should include links to the following items:

Mortgage and Payment Calculator

How much can I afford calculator

Tax benefits calculator

Your real estate site should also have useful maps. Google Earth provides maps and ariel views from satellites.  You can zoom in on any home and see how many cars are parked in the driveway.  That’s a pretty snazzy feature to have on your real estate site.

Your site should include updated home listings and virtual tours of homes.

Virtual tours are easy to provide.  All you need a digital camera.  You then just upload the images with your listings – and not just the outside of the home, but the inside, and all the impressive features – not for every listing, but of your featured homes.

Also, not everyone is looking for the same kind of home. So you would want to have categories of homes, for example . . .

Extraordinary Homes

New Home

Condos

Bargain Homes

Vacation Homes

Fixer-Upers

Starter Homes

Apartments for Rent

Homes for Rent

Foreclosure Auctions

You would also want your site to be able to give your visitor a Free Home Value Estimate.

People love those.  People always want to know approximately what their home would sell for – and what other similar homes in their area are selling for.

You would want your visitor to be able to pre-qualify by filling out a preliminary application on your site – which will give you a lot of useful information about your prospect.

And You should offer a free credit report to your visitor – again, giving you valuable intelligence.

A chart showing property value increases in the area over time would also be of great interest to your visitors.

You should also have a  sections on:

Listings of lenders specializing in helping people with poor credit

Poor credit mortgage rates

Your site should list vendors of services that are also needed by homebuyers, such as:

Settlement Services

Financing services

Insurance

Relocation

Contractors

Home Service

Your site should also include a lot of relevant articles on the subject of buying and property.  Titles of articles of interest might be . . .

Home Renovations that Pay Off

IRAs for Home Purchases

Who pays what in real estate

How to improve your credit

People who became billionaires by investing in real estate

Don’t become a victim of a mortgage scam

How to buy foreclosed properties profitably

And it’s best if you also have some articles that are specifically about buying and selling property in Great Falls

This is how you make your site “sticky” – that is, a place where your visitors will stick around, will linger and come back to find out what’s happening in the world of Great Falls real estate.

But remember, job #1 of your Internet marketing strategy must be to capture the contact information of visitors to your site who are interested in buying or selling property in Great Falls.

The valuable bait you should use to capture the lead include:

1)      A free “Guide to Buying Property in Great Falls, Virginia: Where to Find the Hidden Values.”

2)      A free “white paper” titled “Property Appreciation Trends in Great Falls, Virginia.”

3)      Free access to the latest updated property listings with virtual tours;

4)      A  free home value analysis.

I would include all these items as your “bait” or “ethical bribe” that gives your visitor an strong incentive to fill out your sign-up form.

For real estate, you should require your prospect to give you their all their key contact information before they receive these valuable items and services: name, phone number, email address and physical address.

The breaks my usually rule of only asking for a name and email address on a sign-up form.

But real estate is different.  You need a phone number – because that’s key way you follow-up in the real estates business.  Ask for two phone numbers.

You don’t want to give your visitor access to the most valuable FREE information on your site until they give you their contact information.

Your simple ad that brings them to your site might says something very simple like this:

Free Guide

to Buying Property Profitably in Great Falls, Virginia

Go to:

FreeGrealFallsPropertyGuide.com

That’s how you make your website a lead generation machine.   The bait here is the free book. 

But you should not require your visitors to fill out your form to get all the information on your site – just the most valuable items.

Let anyone who arrives at your site use your mortgage payment and tax calculators, maps, information on the area, articles, some featured property listings, and so on.

So even if they don’t give you their contact information, let them have some of your good stuff free – just not your really good stuff – your ebooks, white paper, property value analysis, and full listing of properties..

They have to give you their contact information to get to get your really gold-plated super valuable information.mmIn real estate:

** 40% of leads will be collected by offering a great ebook or “white paper.”

** 30% will be collected by offering listings, especially if you include virtual tours of real homes.

** About 20% will want a free value estimate of their home.

So require your visitors to give you their contact information to get this information – the most valuable information on your site.

Remember, you want to be a lead collecting machine.  That’s really the primary purpose of your website for you . . . so you can then quickly follow up.

Now, your visitors to your site will stick around on your site if your site is useful and if it is interesting.  What are your visitors interested in?

They are interested in either selling or buying a home in Great Falls, Virginia.

You know that’s what they are interested in because that’s what your site is all about.  And they found you either by typing “Homes Great Falls Virginia” or some set of keywords like that into a search engine.

Or they clicked through to your site from an ad you ran on a Great Falls community site.  Or they saw an ad you are running in a community newspaper that’s read by residents of Great Falls, or maybe your ad on a door hanger that you left on the door knob of every resident of Great Falls.

And this is very important.

The keywords and keyword phrases that you select for your PPC ad campaigns on Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing (and also for organic search) must all be real estate in Great Falls Virginia – not real estate generally.

You don’t want to be competing with REMAX, Century 21 and the big national firms.

But you can run circles around those big national firms in Great Falls by being the Great Falls, Virginia Real Estate specialist. 

Great Falls all the time and only Great Falls.  That’s what your site should be about.

It’s the difference between Wal-Mart and a little boutique specialty shop.

But guess what.

Very often those little boutique specialty shops become big national chains.

McDonald’s started out as just one restaurant.  That’s how all stores start out.

Wal-Mart started off as a hardware store in Arkansas.

So that’s how you need to operate.  Dominate your market in a small little manageable area first . . . and then build new stores.

It’s much better to be a big fish in a small pond that to try to compete in the ocean where the big sharks are.  Dominate your small market first.

That’s why you need a separate web site – a separate virtual store – for each town you are serving if you are a realtor.  Don’t say “Serving Southern California”  or serving the “Greater Los Angeles Area”

Say “Specializing in Beverley Hills” or Burbank  or whatever the area is.  The more narrow and focused you are, the better your marketing will do.

So if your area is real estate in Great Falls, Virginia,  have your site be only about that.

That means most of your articles and ebooks and information should zero in on real estate in Great Falls, Virginia.

That’s what will move your site to the top of the free search listings on Google and the search engines . . . because what do the search engines want to give their surfers?

They want to give them relevant information – articles – not ads.

So if you have a lot of articles on your site specifically about real estate in Great Falls Virginia, the search engines will love your site.

Now, I’ll say this again.

The foundation of your Internet marketing strategy must be all about collecting names, email addresses and contact information.

These are your qualified leads.  Without leads, you have no business.  Your leads are your business.  Without leads, you have no way to make sales.

So building your list of leads must be the focus of your Internet strategy.  Your website must be your Venus Fly trap for collecting your leads.

Okay, so how do you go about getting people to go to your website?

Well, I’ve mentioned a few ways already. But I’ll expand a little more on what I have already said.

If you are a realtor specializing in real estate in Great Falls, what you want of course is to maximize traffic only from those who are interested in buying or selling property in Great Falls.

So how do you do that?

Well, there are lots of ways.

I’ll mention a few ways here.

But here’s the most important thing you need to know – so read this very carefully.  Then read it again and think about it.

All your advertising and all your ways to get people to go to your website must emphasize your “free offer.”

Pick Up Your . . .

“FREE Guide to Buying Real Estate

Profitably in Great Falls, Virginia”

Go to:

FreeGreatFallsRealEstateBook.com

That’s the them of all your advertising.  That’s your hook to get people to go to your site – to get their free guide.   That’s your “ethical bribe.”

What you are doing here is paying people to go to your site and to give you their contact information.  The more attractive your free offer, the better you will do at collecting leads.

That’s your first selling job – persuading people that your free book is valuable and worth getting.  If it’s junk, people won’t want it -- even if it’s free.

You must have something good to give away.    And you must show people how good it is, or they aren’t going to bother to go to your site and give you their contact information.

Now, this is such a simple principle that I feel like an idiot for saying it so many times.

But just about every site I see out there is all about the business and not about what’s in it for the customer.

The typical site for a realtor has a photo of the realtor, or maybe lots of realtors and the photos.

And my reaction when I see these sites is “So what?”  Why should I care about these people?  I don’t know them from Adam.

Why should I even bother to read one word on this kind of a site . . . that is really nothing more than photos of grinning realtors.

Most importantly, there is no strong and clearly stated offer for why I should give these sites my contact information. What’s in it for me?

Well, a “Free Guide to Buying Real Estate Profitably in Great Falls Virginia” sounds pretty good.

Better if you also toss in a free white paper on “Property Value Trends in Great Falls Virginia.”

Plus maybe also throw in another ebook on “The 12 Most Common Mistakes People Make When Buying a Home in Great Falls Virginia.”

Off all three of these publications FREE.

This is what I call the “Free Gift Pile-On Stategy.”

You just keep piling on the free gifts until you visitor thinks: “I’d be an idiot not to fill out this form.”

Once the form is filled out, a link to the ebook and “white paper” downloads is emailed to your new lead instantly.

So now you have your lead.

Now here’s another fact to keep in mind.

69% of home buyers use the very first real estate agent they contact.

People do not research their agents. The same can be said of just about any profession.

People don’t research their plumbers. They have a leaky pipe.  They need a plumber now. 

They frantically search the Yellow Pages or go on line and they grab the first plumber they can get on the phone.  That’s how people shop for most services.

Most people get hired not because they are the most qualified, not because the company conducted exhaustive research and investigations of all possible candidates.

Some companies do that.  The big ones. The best run ones.

But most people get hired because they happened to walk in the door at exactly the right time.

It’s the “being there” principle.  90% of success in life is just making sure you are there at the right time.

So that’s your marketing strategy in a nutshell.  Just make sure you are always there.

Now what this fact also shows is how important follow-up is.

If you have a website that’s designed to capture leads – like the content-rich “sticky” site I just described – you need to have a way to follow-up the instant the lead comes in.

Because remember, 70% of those looking for a realtor use the first real estate agent they contact . . . also the first dentist, the first lawn care guy, the first plumber, the first doctor, the first lawyer.

So if you fail to follow-up and follow-up your lead instantly, they will keep searching. And they are going to use the first person who will talk to them – i.e. your competitor.

So you need to have an immediate follow-up campaign.  Your first follow-up contact would be a pleasant introduction and conversation that would include your question that are designed to find out what your inquiry is interested in, what they are looking for, what they can afford and so forth – all the key questions.

These questions you ask are a key part of your market research.

Your first conversation will allow you to assess the seriousness of your lead.

As your leads come in, you will learn how to prioritize your leads.  Once your lead generation machine really gets rolling, you need to have a way to sift and sort through your leads.

You will probably handle your most promising inquiries yourself.

You would delegate your less high-priority leads to an assistant.

And, of course, your goal is to start showing properties.  All your leads should be added to your list to receive your printed monthly newsletter as well as your weekly e-zine focused on properties in Great Falls.

A good marketing trick is always to show the great properties that were just sold, and to feature just a few properties that are still available.

Scarcity is always a good argument for acting now.

Okay,  so how do you get people to come to your website?

Well I’m a firm believer in not driving people to your home page, which is general.

It’s easy for people on your home page to get lost clicking links and going down rabbit trails.

What you want to do is drive them to a specific landing page that features your free offer – your “Guide to Buying Property Profitably in Great Falls Virginia”  and other valuable ebooks.

Bring them here first where you sell them on the value of getting this free book.

Again, take a look at one of my landing pages so you can see what I mean  at FreeSalesLetterBook.com

Notice how I’m selling just one thing here.  I’m asking for just one action – just one simple thing.  That’s how you capture contact information.

You won’t do nearly as well collecting your leads if the first place you take your visitor is your general site.  Take them to your general site after you’ve collected their contact information.

This is critical to your success.

Now for your offline advertising – your print ads, postcards and the like that take your visitor to your landing page, the domain name is important.

A domain name is like the toll-free 800 number.  The best 800 numbers are easy to remember.

The same with domain names – especially domain names of your landing pages that are designed to collect your leads.

That’s why I like FreeSalesLetterBook.com for what I am doing.

FreeGreatFallsPropertyGuide.com would be a good domain name for your landing page if you are trying to collect leads of people interested in buying property in Great Falls.

The domain name says what the offer is.  You want to have domain names for your landing pages that people can remember and that relate to what you are offering.

Take the domain name FreeCreditReport.com

There’s no doubt what that is.  That’s what you want your domain names to be like for your landing pages.

And the domain name for your landing pages should be different than the domain name for your general site.  The domain name for your landing pages should be about the free offer -- like FreeCreditReport.com or FreeSalesLetterBook.com

Those domain names work great for radio ads and all your offline advertising to get people to go to the landing page – the free offer.

The domain name for your landing pages says exactly what the free offer is.

But the domain name for your general site might be called “Great Falls Real Estate.com”  or something like that.

I also generally think it’s best to have your landing page be a stand-alone separate site – a microsite apart from your general site.

Once they sign up to get your valuable “Free Guide” you then take them over to you general site.

You really want your lead acquisition site and your general site to be separate because they serve different purposes.

Some Internet marketers disagree with me about that.

Some will make the landing page a tab in the index, or a hidden page on their general site. 

But just remember, the more links you have on your landing page, the better the chance your prospect will head down a rabbit trail and never fill out your form.

I want no links on my landing pages.  I think it’s best to have your lead acquisition site as separate from your general site.

Okay, so how do you drive people to your landing page – your free offer – so that you can get their contact information and so that you can then begin your follow-up program?:

Well, all kinds of ways, including:

1) Print ads, radio ads, TV ads, Yellow Pages ads, classified ads, display ads

2) Direct mail, postcards, card decks

3) Fliers, door hangers, signs, billboards, the side of your car

4) Your business card

5) Movie theaters

6) And of course, PPC on Google Ad Words and ads on local sites where you know your best prospects are going.

7) Google’s Local Business Center

Okay, let’s move on to another type of local business.

Suppose you own a store.  Suppose you are a retailer, or a barber, or a dry cleaner or a restaurant?

How do you use the Internet to explode your store traffic?

Very much the same way.  Your first goal must be to collect names, email addresses and visitors to your store.

You can ask for their email address and contact information when they walk into you store.

As with all lead generation marketing, the best way to collect a qualified lead is usually to offer something of value that’s free . . . in exchange for their contact information.

You are in effect paying for information – information that is of tremendous value to you and your business.  This is how you build your list.

That information is the name and contact information of someone you know is interested in what you are selling.

There is almost no information more valuable in the world than that.

Now, what you offer for free should have real value and also needs to be related directly to what you sell.

If you own a health food store, give away a couple of granola bars in exchange for their contact information.  Or perhaps a free book titled something like “Natural Cures for Most Illnesses.”

If you own a sporting goods store, give away a baseball cap.  Or hold a raffle, or both. 

To enter the raffle, your store visitors would throw their business card into a bowl or fill out a form if they don’t have a business card.  The point is, you need to be a name-and-address collecting machine.

Why?

So you can follow up with offers.  So you can follow up with email and with postal mail.

Your offers can be coupons that arrive in an email that they can print off and get their 25% discount if they bring it in by a certain date.  Always have deadlines on you offers.

Let’s say you are a sporting goods store.

People who are interested in golf are not necessarily interested in hiking.

You will want to find out the specific interest of your store visitors.

Your golfers should receive mostly golf offers and information related to golf. You should have site specifically for your golfing clientele.

I like golf.  And I get a lot of my golf stuff at Sports Authority – a big general sports store – because the prices are better than at the golf store.

So if you are running a big general store like that, you need to know what your customers are interested in -- so that you can offer them specials and promotions on their specific area of interest.

Don’t send your golfers hiking offers . . . unless you find out they are also interested in hiking.

And your emails should always include reasons for your prospects and customers to come to your store right now – coupons offering discounts if they come in by a certain date.

Remember, for the retailer it’s all about generating store traffic.  Once you get people in your store, the chances are good that they will buy a number of things while they are in there – not just the item for which they have the 25%-off coupon.

That’s how you do target marketing.

To do target marketing effectively, you must not only be a name and address collecting machine, but you must find out what their areas of interest are so you can craft your offers to meet their area of interest.

That’s how you achieve that all important message-to-market match.

Achieving your “message to market match” a constant theme of this book because it’s just about the single most important principle in marketing.

Okay, so what if you are in the service business?

Let’s say you are a roofer.

Well, lets see, I just did a check on Google AdWords. 

I found out I can be the #1 roofer in Great Falls, Virginia for 5 cents a click.

I would  select all the keyword phrases and combinations having to do with “Roofer Great Falls Virginia”  And I would select “exact keyword match” as my criteria with Google because I am only interested in customers from Great Falls.

I would be sure to register at Google’s Local Business Center.  This is key if you are a local business.  It also gets your business included on Google maps.  Google is placing special emphasis on highlighting local business because 60% of all searches are local people searching for a local business.

For my free offer designed to capture the contact of my visitors, I would offer a “Free Guide to Making Your Roof Last Forever”  something like that . . . plus maybe another ebook titled “12 Common Mistakes People Make When Hiring a Roofer.”

And remember, people who need a roofer usually need a roofer now.  So instant follow-up on your leads is essential.  Instant follow-up is essential for any kind of service business.

Be sure also to include many ways to contact you – phone number, physical address, email.

This rule, by the way, is essential for any website – but especially for websites designed for local businesses and for service businesses.

Remember the big advantage you have being a local business over your bigger national competitors.  Your big advantage is that you are local.

You are not a big impersonal corporation.  You are a member of your community.  Use this advantage by emphasizing that you are local – especially important if you are in the service business.

Now, the reason you want to be capturing the names and email addresses and other contact information of visitors to your site is so you can follow-up with your “drip, drip, drip” markeing campaign – including your useful weekly ezine or enewsletter on how to take care of your roof, and so on.

What you are trying to do is brand yourself in the minds of your target market.  You want to be the first person your target market thinks of when they need their roof fixed.

The brand you are trying to build is that you are the trusty, reliable and friendly roofer in Great Falls who provides superb service.

Now, here’s what’s great about building your Internet-based business this way.

Once you have captured the name and email address of your visitors, your follow-up from then on out is virtually free . . . because email is just about free.

I believe you also need a printed monthly newsletter that shows up in a physical mailbox, because printed material still has much greater perceived value that the same material that comes by way of email.

You will probably need to pay for advertising to get people to come to your landing page to get your free offer – the free ebook on “How to Make Sure Your Roof Lasts Forever.”

But after that, your follow-up communications are basically free . . . forever.

The more specialized and focused your marketing strategy is on the Internet, the better you will do.  And always remember what people care about.

They don’t care one wit about you or your company.  Your prospects care about what you can do to fix their problem

So that’s what you website and entire marketing strategy must be about – solving the problem of your prospects, your leads and your customers.

Be a problem solver.  Put the focus not on you.  Instead, focus on solving the problems of others, or your target market.

If you follow this formula, you will dominate your market and run circles around your competition.

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